Education and the Future: The Changing Role of the Teacher

As knowledge changes rapidly, education is transforming too. We explore the changing role of the teacher in a more democratic, student-centred approach.

Composing grand sentences about the future may look easy, yet in a field as full of variables as education, even speaking about the present is difficult. School, family, society, new media, culture and the economy are foundations in constant interaction, and as knowledge is produced and renewed at speed, every analysis becomes open to debate. In this article, we consider the transforming role of education and of the teacher in a changing world.

Why Is a Transformation Needed?

For a collective improvement towards better tomorrows, the need for schools and teachers to change is clear. We are in a process, sometimes exciting and sometimes worrying, in which classical formal education with its thousands of years of history has become open to question, and the calls for theory and practice to take on new forms are growing louder.

A less authoritarian, more democratic and social structure, driven by inner motivation, looks promising for both student and teacher.

The Changing Role of the Teacher

In this new understanding, the role of the teacher is evolving from an authority who transfers knowledge towards a position that supports the student in depth throughout the learning process and makes learning easier. It matters to remain aware of being an example and a role model to students, and never to overlook that, while carrying out the responsibilities of the profession, the teacher is also shaping the inner world of the person before them.

In brief

  • As knowledge changes rapidly, education must transform too.
  • The new approach is more democratic and places the student at the centre.
  • The teacher is a guide who makes learning easier and invests in the future.

Mesut Döner · General Director of Gökkuşağı Schools

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Gökkuşağı Koleji · An education that invests in the future.